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Tuesday, 12 July 2016

Finding Audrey

Author: Sophie Kinsella

Published: 2015

Publisher: Corgi Books

My rating: 3/5

Hey guys, its Lydia here!

I’m going to be doing a review on the book I finished
yesterday, Finding Audrey.

I would definitely recommend this book for people with a
mental illness, as the novel is all about how this 14/15 year old girl overcome
her anxiety and how she finds someone who makes her feel less alone. After
reading the book I felt filled and happy, because the character hadn’t
completely overcome her anxiety but she had become a different person and the
book ended on a good note. The novel is a good representation of life, that is why
I really love reading and writing in the contemporary style, don't get me wrong I like to read fantasy, however sometimes the book could become so unrealistic that you can't relate yourself to the book/novel. I would say that
this book is aimed at readers aged 12-15 as the language is quite simplistic
and easy to read.

For the rest of the review I’m going to split it into what I enjoyed about the book and what I didn't like. I promise there are more
positives than negatives.

Positives:

What I found really interesting is the fact that Audrey has
isolated herself from society and public, by restricting herself to her house
and her room, she can only talk to her family members but even then she has to
even sun glasses, as she doesn’t like to make direct eye contact with people.
It conveys how serious her anxiety is. I can really relate to her as a
character, as I also have anxiety, it’s not as extreme as hers, but I can
understand and empathise how she gets jittery and panicked by little incidents that
wouldn’t affect her family or friends.

I
really liked the humour in the book, it did make me laugh out loud and
not many books do that for me. Audrey’s mum and her brother Frank are really
realistic characters, a teenage boy obsessed over computer games and his
protective and controlling mother trying to convince him to go outside or do
some exercise. I really liked how at the beginning of the book, it’s their mum
throwing Frank’s laptop out the bedroom window, because she think the game LOC is corrupting
her son, it’s just hilarious.

What is unique is that we get to see Audrey’s sessions with
her therapist/physiatrist, and her relationship with Dr. Sarah. Again it makes
the novel realistic and life like, as young people with a mental illness would commonly do this.

The character Linus was a strange character because there
wasn’t much backstory on him, except that he couldn’t play video games at his
house, because his Nan had dementia. I have a mixed feeling about him. His
physical appearance isn’t described must either. I don’t know whether that’s
because Audrey is the narrator for the story and that she is insular, and is
also afraid to think about his features because she’s afraid of what it could
develop into, the whole effect of her anxiety that leads her to jump to conclusions
and assume what people are thinking . In my opinion the whole reason for the
existence of the character is to show Audrey that not everyone talks about her
and judges her. How Linus almost pulls her back to the person who she used to
be, he makes her happy, he makes her wants to go to Starbucks and be outside,
and more or less enjoy her life.

Negatives:

One of the aspects I didn't like about Finding Audrey is the fact that the character implies that something happened to her at school that caused her anxiety or mental breakdown, it's mainly implied that it was bullying, however the character never tells the reader what happened. For me as a writer this would have been one of the most crucial things to include in a story. Perhaps it was part of Kinsella's way of letting the reader suss out what happened to Audrey, and what resulted in her anxiety.

The only other thing I found that I didn't like, was that the novel was overly prolonged. I don't think it needed to be that long. It took a while for me as a reader to get to the core of the story. Again as a writer and a student who studies English Literature, Kinsella could have done this so the reader feels more introduced to the characters and gets to see their personality more.

Hope you enjoyed this review, please go check out the other reviews we have up by Shani and Heather.